An extremely poor quality scan. Blurry text that can barely be zoomed in on, no bookmarks, and streaking in the images. I could've produced a better result by scanning my own physical copy of the book. Very disappointing considering the price of the PDF. This isn't some new title with fresh content and graphical layout, but a dated, defunct wargame. Without an improvement to the PDF, the price is ridiculous.

If really find that the product was extremely well made and excellently rendered and prepared (with all the due inevitable problems arising from heavily detailed colour splash-pages and comic-styled illustration).

From the "Tabletop Miniature Wargame" point of view I feel it condensated very well all the various nuances of the Combat System; especially for the use of customized troops and vehicles (I found very useful the many details about Earth-based Armed Forces, as the older products of the line that I owned were seriously lacking about Hover-Tanks and G.R.E.L. Clone-Troopers).

Even more excellent were the various Background parts about the various factions; the ones native of the "Terranova Homeworld" were very well written, with a rich and detailed history; the Timeline Flowchart was concise, yet rich of details and allowed the pinpointing of "Focal Events" in the Gameworld, to recreate pivotal moments of the History as "Epic Battles".

Exceeding even this the "Black Talon" section was interesting, cleverly written in a almost-novelization manner and full of interesting tidbits about the "Liberati Freedom Fighters" that compounded the short, yet fulfilling, section of the "Caprice Homeworld".

Although short and concise, the sections about Earth and the other Colonies and their detailed (or hypothethical) whereabouts were anyway very interesting and detailing what were only lesser footnotes of the Gameworld Background in the older material that I collected in 20 years of following the Dream-Pod9 line of products.

As "Icing on the Cake" the two Polar-View Maps of the "Terranova Homeworld" and the "Equatorial Map" were extremely useful, well made, rendered in a precise manner and also very Print-Friendly even in large formats.

I think that this is a well-rounded product on-spot with the HIGHEST expectations of the best standards of quality offered both by DrivethruRPG and Dream-Pod9 in ALL of his possible edges.

A previous review spoke of poor quality, but a new version must have been posted since then. I had an index and high quality images unlike that complaint, so the issues have been fixed and it was a great value for the twelve bucks I paid for it. Looking forward to introducing my group to some Mecha action.

This product was well scanned. It's very nice that you guys took the time to get it right.
I only wish that I could have it in full screen mode, but maybe I can and it falls on the fact that I'm not that tech savvy.
But it's an excellent choice and scan.
The book is the best, and the game is a must for everyone.

As with the previous Forged in Fire and Blood Debt field guides, the Northern "army list" received more than a few changes post-testing during layout that were never reviewed for canon, balance, costing, or other errors. Blood Debt in particular continued to get updates introducing additional power creep almost every time any other faction got a correction.

Typos abound, as the copy was never double-checked before being released even though the Pod people responsible for layout had the material right in front of them to cut+paste. As per usual the Pod chose to appeal to the player-base to find necessary corrections, while at the same time continuing to promote further snap-decision changes that resulted in a re-release to "fix" the subsequent problems beyond the initial release.

The "fixed" edition appeared barely two weeks later, yet was still full of errors primarily caused during layout, because the fans largely chose not to spend their own time hunting for those errors.

* There was an error, or multiple errors, on almost every single datacard, many of which remained uncaught in the re-release.
* Model and variant swaps remain largely broken, as the datacards were completed without checking to see how the combat group option lines were affected, and the necessary changes not made.
* Variants intended for specific factions remain on a number of datacards while the option lines to swap for that model were removed from their corresponding combat groups.

* Several models intended to counter an issue with another faction were cut in favor of keeping "Rally" and "Rideback" inspired models, plus an untested Gear-Strider inserted as a spur of the moment idea.
* Lack of art for multiple new models, which in all likelihood will never be inserted as the previous book, Blood Debt, had gone nearly eight months with a similar lack.
* A model cut from this book in favor of the Scimitar was used to plug an art hole in the most recently "fixed" Blood Debt field guide.

* Large and physically $$$ costly but new models have already gotten art and sculpts along with being included in the latest Beta rules revamp.
* Core models present since the origins of Heavy Gear, specifically included in this book to cover legacy options, did not make it into those same Beta model lists.

* The models or variants were largely balanced against other factions, and avoided unnecessary power creep for the most part, but some players continue to apply their own local meta to every situation regardless of actuality, rendering the process futile.
* Special rules abound throughout this book for multiple factions, in a similar fashion to those created for NuCoal in "The Perfect Storm."

All in all, a rather typical product with which to end the Blitz!-era of Heavy Gear.

This review replaces an earlier version taken down to address a publisher response; which to date has been the ---only--- publisher response to any Heavy Gear product review on DT-RPG.

"Dream Pod 9 wrote:
Mr. Alexander S. also known as Alexander S. was hired by Dream Pod 9 as a writer for the Northern Army list and is just venting. He\'s not happy that he was removed from the project, for unprofessional behavior and failure to understand why you can\'t just go and make an existing player\'s army invalid or remove a model option that has been included in a box set of miniatures for years."

* As turned in by the test group and editor the book was internally coherent, and all swaps worked.
* What few unnoticed or unintended errors occurred in that version, later pointed out by players on release, could have been easily fixed had the changes in the as published version not been made.
* Apart from those small oversights the completed draft covered legacy army lists and models from all previous Heavy Gear Blitz! products for the Northern forces.

* At the end of October 2013, the test team had a lengthy discussion on how best to cover existing physical model boxes along with the changes mandated by the developer and publisher.
* This process and the rationale behind it was pointed out to the publisher on at least three different occasions, as this was a complaint voiced for every previous field guide that was finally avoided as drafted.
* Ignoring objective reality in favor of subjective reality the publisher "fixed" those perceived holes, in many cases by duplicating existing combat group options or faction model swaps.

Further commentary on DP9 and their past practices may be found in an unmoderated form on the [Misc. Miniature Games] forum of DakkaDakka.

As with the previous Forged in Fire field guide, the Paxton "army list" received a few changes post-testing during layout that were never reviewed for canon, balance, costing, or other errors.

Typos continue to abound, as the copy was never double-checked before being released even though the Pod people responsible for layout had the material right in front of them to cut+paste.

As per usual the Pod depended on the player-base to find necessary corrections, while at the same time continuing to promote further snap-decision changes that keep resulting in multiple re-releases to "fix" the subsequent problems.

* Lack of art for multiple new models, which will in all likelihood never be inserted, as the book has gone nearly eight months with that omission.

* Significant power creep and "mary sue" inclusions throughout the book, along with uncosted benefits no longer needed by the faction as updated.
* Issues continue to crop up with model and variant swaps, and the book is now due to receive a fourth re-release.

* Some, but not quite as many special rules as found in The Perfect Storm, Forged in Fire, or Lion's Wrath.
* Power armor for infantry, in a setting based on the one-pilot IFV known as Gears.

All in all, a rather typical product with which to end the Blitz!-era of Heavy Gear alongside Lion's Wrath.

It appears they have gotten the feel of each league right (from what I can read), they are a little more complicated (for a returning player).

An important not to a previous reviewer, they have NOT replaced the cheetah, it is still available but not in significant numbers as before (i.e. Recon). I think this is a well thought out book that closely ties with its the faction's back story.

Lack of new Art does set this book back. However the Squads especially the Faction specific are really nice change. This book isn't perfect storm or Forged in Fire not even close but what its for an army list book so you can build your army it does what it is intended to do. The Hunter XMG finally sees the light of blitz and new addition of Lion and Scimatar gears as well as new variants for the Thunder Hammer and Klemm brings a very new look to the good ol' North. I need to get to work asap on my newest version of WFPA. I will indeed field all three faction specific armys together when ever possible.

As Previous comments stated the Cheetah has a new cousin well it makes sence that not every army can field those little boogers.

Generic North squads are very nice indeed. I'm happy very happy with the end results. Than again I am bias as I did contribute several hours in playtesting but overall this ebook will do what you require and that is build a more powerful Northern Army than previous without the overkill of MBZKs and AGMs ect. I admit I don't think its ballance with the South book but with constant change you can't expect every army to be balanced if thats the case play south vs south or north vs north if you want a true even match.

For an ebook that's 5 months late, let's see the final result.
Virtually no new art, no editing (typoes aplently), datacards in picture format instead of text (forget ctrl+F to find a variant), poor layout from the company that used to be standard-setting. The less said about the quality of the writing, the better.

The above could be forgiven if the content itself was good, alas, the substance matches the style.
The army building system is as complex, counter-intuitive and unbalanced as it's ever been. The squad variants are bloated just to fill pages, while common configurations for squads and units (ATM/HGL Mammoths) vanished, the Cheetah got replaced by its brand new twin brother that looks just the same but with worse stats. I could go on and on...

After the Paxton book that was a gross power-creep, the Northern book is actually the opposite. I guess DP9 would rather sell Paxton minis than Northern ones.

TLDR : This "product" isn't worth the price as far as production value goes, and even if it was free, it breaks what didn't fixing, while ignoring the previous issues. It doesn't really get worse than that.

I bought the Silhouette Core Deluxe edition some time ago, which wasn't too bad, scan wise.
This PDF, unfortunately, not so good.
The pages slant to the side, the scan quality is low.
Not a good scan at all.
I can see why they reduced the price.

Don't get me wrong, I like the Heavy Gear RPG & other products); I have the 1st & 2nd edition books with supplements, miniatures, etc; all good.
So this download (PDF) was a disappointment.

The product itself is superb, but the conversion into a PDF file is mediocre at best. Pages have been scanned unaligned to the scanner in a pretty random way. The text is rather hard to read, it's not very sharp and zooming in doesn't help here at all. The price is low, too, but this is not what I expect when buying a digital version of a book. It's from 2004 not 1984, I did better scans in 2004 than that with my home equipment...

If you don't know anything about Dream Pod 9 in general & Tribe 8 in particular, here's some details.

Dream Pod 9 first came to my attention in the mid to late nineties when they published a small unit, tactical Mech wargame called Heavy Gear. Heavy Gear was set on a world classically 'far, far, away'. It was pretty tight & met with enough fan approval that they went ahead & published an RPG to go along with it so all of us could play the operators of the 'Gears' as Mechs in that game were called. The mechanics of the RPG were largely based upon the mechanics of the Tactical game, but unlike other examples of that variety, they actually worked fairly well; thus spawning two more 'game worlds' using essentially the same core mechanics, which they came to call the 'Silhouette System'.
Why is this important? Because the 'Silhouette System' predates WotC's 'd20' system by a couple years & unfortunately has not seen much support since the turn of the Century. I say unfortunately because it really is a very nice, robust little system. Not to mention the imagination which went into developing the world of Tribe 8 itself. All of which combines to me really liking just about anything having to do with them. Which brings me to the T8PHB.
As is the case with all DriveThruRPG's Silhouette offerings, it is an example of a physical book scanned onto PDFs which qualitatively are going to be inferior to direct PDFs. This is not to say the scans are bad, just not as good as direct PDFs. That said, anything which keeps this game out where new players can discover it & hopefully enjoy and be inspired by it is a good thing in my mind. I can't really say enough good things about this book, it manages to take one of my biggest concerns with introducing new players to the game (how do I introduce ALL the nifty world info without risking the players finding out things they & their characters shouldn't know yet) and at the same time provide at least the basic info of Character Creation and action resolution & put it all into one book.
Sadly, it looks as though this & the Second Edition version of the T8PHB were the LAST materials that Dream Pod 9 published for the setting. I'm still not certain WHY they felt it was necessary to publish a Second Edition of this book, but until I pick up (or more likely download) a copy, I''m forced to suspect it had something to do with them publishing a 'Silhouette Core' system, which seems to have been similar to Steve Jackson Games' GURPS system in that it was intended to use the core rules for all the game worlds with 'World Specific' setting books, but again, until I have the opportunity to read them, this is pure speculation on my part.

In summary; if you are interested in an alternative to the 'd20' system variants out there & interested in a kind of 'mind's eye' view of what Canadian Gamers can come up with, you would do a lot worse than to give Tribe 8 a try & if you are giving Tribe 8 a try, you can do a lot worse than to start with this book.

Nice (while we're waiting for the "proper" Peace River sourcebook. My only negative is the same complaint I have with many other Heavy Gear Blitz PDF packages: it's not clearly marked which is the latest version. In this case, the bundle contains three PDFS:

Which of these is the most up-to-date one? Your guess is as good as mine. It might be the "HeavyGearBlitz_BloodDebt_PeaceRiverArmyList_ebook.pdf". Or it might be the "HeavyGearBlitz_BloodDebt_PeaceRiverArmyList_ebook_Updated_1-2_23_2013" file. The files themselves contain no version information in the text itself (that I could see).

This same problem applies to many other HGB book PDF bundles also, they contain various versions of various books with no clear indication of what is what version.

DP9, *please*

1) Clearly mark which file is the latest version, either by only including the latest (my preference) or by including some sort of README file explaining things. A running version number in the file name itself would also work.

2) Add version information into the book itself, so I can use a PDF reader to figure out which file (version) is which.

Preferably both of those. At the moment, it's all too easy to end up using an obsolete version of a HGB book by mistake, which is annoying.

For those who have been waiting for so long to hear from Peace River once again, this book delivers on army construction as well as providing a glimpse of the future models that will be released. The art is spartan, but very functional, and the designs themselves are very cool to see. The amount of optional loadouts alone are enough to boggle a person who is new to the Heavy Gear universe, so I hope that they won't cross their eyes trying to figure everything out. This third most recent update seems to have cleared up a few issues that the first issue had.

Dream Pod 9 continues to show that they listen to their fans in almost everything they do. Great job all around.